Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

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Recordings

'If these ardent renderings&… do not find a place in your heart then you should wonder what your heart's made of' (Classic FM Magazine)'Hyperion are to be congratulated on their courage in issuing this charming collection of songs which might be classified as an endangered species. Wa ...» More

'Another delightful disc. They couldn't have more perceptive or loving or enthusiastic interpreters … unreservedly recommended' (Gramophone)'Another delightful disc. They couldn't have more perceptive or loving or enthusiastic interpreters… unreservedly recommended' (Gramophone)» More

'Other singers over recent decades have given the songs an airing from time to time, but Thomas Allen is the very man to do it' (Gramophone)'With piano-playing by that most sensitive of accompanists, Malcolm Martineau, Sir Thomas Allen brings high art to these songs … with an affectio ...» More

This album is not yet available for downloadHYP202CDs Super-budget price sampler — Deleted

'More than just a highlight sampler. This is a classy collection, brought together with a great deal of care and attention to musical programming seldom found in this kind of CD … A stocking-filler any music lover would appreciate' (Scotland ...» More

Details

When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly …
Stoop, as the yellow roses droop
In the wind from the south;
So I may when I wake – if there be an awakening –
Keep what lulled me to sleep –
The touch of your lips on my mouth.

When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly,
Stoop, as the yellow roses droop
In the wind from the South;
So I may when I wake, if there be an awakening,
Keep, what lulled me to sleep, the touch of your lips on my mouth.

Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,
Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Rapture’s roadway, far,
Before you agonise them in farewell?

Pale hands, pink-tipped, like lotus-buds that float
On those cool waters where we used to dwell,
I would have rather felt you round my throat
Crushing out life than waving me farewell!

Laurence Hope (1865-1904)

This song has a lyric that is supposedly based on fact—the love of the son of a Kashmiri rajah for a married English woman. The story of the song’s creation is no less engaging. When The Garden of Kama, a collection of Indian love lyrics, was published in 1901 they were described as by ‘a new and refreshingly virile poet’. In fact ‘Laurence Hope’ was the wife of a Bengal Army officer, Captain Malcolm Nicolson. Born in Clifton, Gloucestershire, she was herself the daughter of an Indian Army officer and lived in India from the age of sixteen. There she met and married Captain Nicolson, who was over twenty years her senior. Her celebrity increased when Four Indian Love Lyrics (of which the ‘Kashmiri Song’ is the third) were set to music, but tragedy followed in 1904 when Major Nicolson (as he now was) died in Madras during a prostate operation. Heartbroken, his widow committed suicide by taking poison two months later.

Amy Woodforde-Finden, composer of the Four Indian Love Lyrics, was born Amelia Ward in Valparaiso, Chile, where her American father was British Consul. Later the family settled in South Kensington, after which Amy travelled in Kashmir and married a lieutenant-colonel who had served with Colonel Nicolson. Perhaps surprisingly, she experienced difficulty getting her songs published, until the singer Hamilton Earle took them up. Among artists who have recorded the ‘Kashmiri Song’, the most unlikely is perhaps Rudolph Valentino in his only recording.

Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,
Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Rapture’s roadway, far,
Before you agonise them in farewell?
Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,
Where are you now? Where are you now?

Pale hands, pink-tipped, like Lotus buds that float
On those cool waters where we used to dwell,
I would have rather felt you round my throat,
Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!
Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,
Where are you now? Where are you now?

Laurence Hope (1865-1904)

Amazingly intense feelings of yearning, passion and loss are expressed in both text and music written in 1902 by two women—Laurence Hope did the words—obviously caught up in the exotic world of the Raj.